


Forgiveness

by duchess325



Series: The Baker Street Chronicles [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Canon Divergence - His Last Vow, Episode: s03e03 His Last Vow, Eventual Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper, F/M, Hurt Sherlock, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-19 23:32:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11324010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duchess325/pseuds/duchess325
Summary: Sherlock has been shot. Can Molly put aside her anger at Sherlock to be by his side?





	Forgiveness

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a very short story to show Molly's reaction to Sherlock being shot and their interaction in his hospital room (after Janine visits, but before he disappears from hospital).

“Molly, I have some bad news,” John’s voice said when Molly answered her mobile phone.

“Oh, god, is it Sherlock?” she asked him, sinking into a chair at her kitchen table. Images raced through her head of Sherlock, unkept and high on drugs, standing in her lab as she slapped him furiously for throwing away his gifts on heroin. That was the last time she had seen him, and she had still been angry at him then for lying to her and sleeping with Janine. Now, not even a day later, John was calling her with “bad news.” It could only be about Sherlock if John was calling her.

“Yes, it’s Sherlock, but it’s not what you are probably thinking. Molly, he’s been shot. We just got to Royal London and….” At this point, John was breaking down but just managed to finish his sentence, “…and things didn’t look good in the ambulance.”

Molly fought back her own tears as she frantically bombarded John with questions, “Shot? By whom? What happened? Is he going to make it, John?”

“I don’t know, Molly,” John choked. “You better come.”

 

Molly rushed into the A&E area of Royal London and found John sitting, dazed, in the waiting room, a paper cup of untouched coffee in his hands. When he saw Molly dash in he sat the coffee down and took quick, long strides to meet her in the middle of the room where they embraced, each one breaking down in tears. When they were both able to calm down a bit, John led Molly by the elbow to a chair next to his.

“What the hell is going on, John? And don’t lie to me—god, don’t lie to me because this is the father of my child in there, and I have the right to know what is going on.”

John looked down at the linoleum tiles and nodded. “You’re absolutely right. It’s a long story and hard to believe, but I will tell you the truth, Molly, because you do deserve it.

“After we left you at Bart’s yesterday, Sherlock and I went back to his flat where Mycroft was waiting. I had called him and told him that Sherlock was using again. He had Anderson and a couple member of Sherlock’s ‘fan club’ tossing the apartment, looking for drugs, or whatever. Well, you can imagine what Sherlock thought of that. Anyway, Sherlock kept insisting that he wasn’t ‘using’ again and that this was all for a case. Then he mentioned the name Charles Magnussen to Mycroft and that seemed to change the mood for the worse, if that was possible.

“Magnussen is a newspaper mogul, you’ve probably heard of him, most of his papers are rags and he likes to publish sensationalized rubbish. Anyway, Sherlock’s latest case involves some letters that Magnussen is holding against a government official, Lady Smallwood, as blackmail.”

“Lady Smallwood? That’s who came to Sherlock’s flat the night that I came over to spend the night,” Molly said when she recognized the name.

“Okay, that sounds like a story that you need to tell me, but that will be later. Yes, Lady Smallwood hired Sherlock to get the letters back and stop Magnussen. But, Mycroft told him to stand down and leave Magnussen alone.

“Sherlock refused and kicked Mycroft out of the flat.

“Now, Molly, this next bit may be upsetting, and I apologize, but you said you wanted to know everything.”

“Yes, I do,” she said. “Go on.”

“After Mycroft left, Janine came out of hiding in Sherlock’s bedroom.” John paused to look at Molly’s reaction. She was visibly shaken by this information, but she tried hard to appear stoic. “Um, apparently, she and Sherlock have been seeing each other for a few weeks--”

“Yes, I know. I ran into her one morning when I was leaving Sherlock’s flat,” Molly interrupted.

“What exactly did I miss while I was on my honeymoon?!” John asked in bewilderment. He looked at Molly with amazement that she held so many secrets, but then he continued with his story.

“Right, so, Magnussen showed up at Baker Street soon after Janine left, refused to give up the letters for Lady Smallwood, but hinted that he had them here in London, pissed in the fireplace and left.

“Sherlock had me meet him at Magnussen’s corporate headquarters that evening. He was sure that Magnussen had the letters in his office and Sherlock was determined to get in while Magnussen was out to dinner and find the letters. I had no idea how he was planning to get in; he just said he had been shopping.

“At the lift to Magnussen’s private office Sherlock swiped a corrupted key card, which alerted Magnussen’s PA to check the camera to see if it was her boss because only she could let him in the lift. His PA is Janine, and in order to get her to let him on the lift, Sherlock pulled out an engagement ring and proposed to her right there in the lobby of CAM Global News.”

A look of hurt flickered across Molly’s face, that was hard to perceive, but John knew her well and knew her feelings for Sherlock.

“Janine let him up and when we got there we found her knocked out on the floor, as well as one of Magnussen’s body guards. Magnussen was still there, along with an intruder. While I attended to Janine, Sherlock went upstairs to Magnussen’s penthouse to find Magnussen and the intruder. When he walked in on them, the intruder shot Sherlock. I found him a few moments later and called 999. The shooter was gone and Magnussen said he didn’t know the gunman. And here we are.”

“Where did he get shot? The bullet—where did the bullet go in?” Molly asked. John knew she was going into doctor mode to avoid dealing with her other emotions.

“The liver, but it seems to have passed through and hit his inferior vena cava. There was a lot of blood, Molly. We almost lost him in the ambulance and they’ve been operating for a long time.” John shook his head wearily.

“He’s strong, John. He’s going to be okay. We just have to keep believing that,” Molly said with her stoic face again. But as they sat there together, John watched as her face began to droop and her eyes glazed over with tears. He knew that although she was trying to be brave and try to believe that Sherlock was going to be okay, the doctor in her knew that the outlook was not good. John reached over and took Molly’s hand in his and they waited.

*********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Molly sat by Sherlock’s bedside glancing through some newspapers that she had found on his bedside table. Headlines of Sherlock’s escapades with Janine glared from each of them, a seductive picture of Janine in Sherlock’s deerstalker hat gracing the cover of one of the papers. Sherlock had been sleeping fitfully since she had been here; Molly noticed that his morphine had been turned down. She was hidden behind a headline that declared Sherlock “Shag-A-Lot Holmes” when he finally began to stir from his sleep.

“Oh, god, Janine! Are you back to rub this in my face some more? I thought we were all sorted out?” Sherlock proclaimed rather groggily.

Molly lowered the paper slowly.

“Molly!” Sherlock said in surprise. He reached over to the controls on the side of his bed to adjust himself to a more upright position.

“Hello, Sherlock—or am I supposed to call you Shag-A-Lot now?”

“Molly--”

“No, it’s okay. Now I know for sure what you were doing while I was upstairs in your flat crying my eyes out over Tom. Now I know why you didn’t have time for me.”

“Molly, it wasn’t like that. Well, not exactly like that.”

“I know. You were just using her to get to Magnussen. John told me.” She looked at him sternly. “That doesn’t make it right and it certainly doesn’t make it better.”

“Molly, if I could just explain to you…”

“What? What is there to explain? I’m nothing to you, Sherlock. You don’t owe me an explanation.”

Sherlock grimaced, but did not adjust his morphine drip. “What do you mean, ‘you’re nothing to me’? Molly, you are my friend, someone that I trust. You know you matter to me. I know it all looks bad—me using Janine to get to her boss, but it was for a case.”

“Sherlock, every time you do something horrible and morally questionable you declare that it’s for a case. John finds you high in a smack house—it’s for a case. You leave me high and dry when I come to you as a friend in need—it’s for a case. You shag a beautiful woman, at least once when I’m sleeping right upstairs, and then you propose to her without ever having any intentions of marrying her—and it’s for a case. When are you ever going to learn that the end does NOT always justify the means, especially when you are hurting the people who are your friends and the people who care about you. You can’t treat us like this, Sherlock. And as far as me knowing that I matter to you? Well, you haven’t shown that to me lately.”

“You’re right, Molly,” he answered her softly.

“I’m sorry, what?” Molly asked with a tone of surprise.

“You are right. I’ve been telling myself for too long that it doesn’t matter how I get the results I need, or who I have to hurt along the way, as long as I solve my cases. I suppose that in the past I didn’t have friends or people who cared about me so I never thought about what I was doing or how it might affect anyone else. That has changed. My life has changed, and I need to consider that.” He grimaced again and closed his eyes.

“Here, let me adjust your drip,” Molly said with concern as she walked around to the other side of the bed.

“No! No, please don’t. I need to think and the drugs are making my mind cloudy,” Sherlock told her.

“I thought you liked that,” Molly mumbled.

“Not while I’m on a case,” Sherlock said.

“Sherlock, you are in no condition to be working on a case. You might as well let the drugs relieve your pain. I imagine you must have some broken ribs from the CPR and you need to minimize your movements for a couple of days as the IVC repair heals, otherwise you could cause it to bleed out -- your liver too.”

“Thank you for your concern, Molly, but I do need a clear head to plan my next moves against Magnussen when I get out of here.” He looked her in the eyes, “I mean it, thank you. You know, Molly, you are the reason I survived.”

Molly looked at Sherlock, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“You saved me,” Sherlock said with a smile. “When I was shot, you were there. You told me which way to fall, to not go into shock, and to control my pain. It was you. I went to my mind palace and I found you.”

Molly looked away quickly so Sherlock could not see the tears well-up in her eyes. She walked over to the windows, her back to him before she spoke again.

“Did you know who it was? Do you know who shot you?” Composed now, she turned to face him. She could read the answer in his face before he said a word.

“No.”

“You’re lying, Sherlock. That’s okay, you don’t have to tell me, but please promise me you won’t go after him. Please let the police do their job.” She looked at Sherlock for a moment. “Are you protecting someone? You would have seen who shot you.”

Sherlock turned his head to look at Molly. “You can always see me, can’t you, Molly? You see the real me.Yes, I know who did it, and yes, I am protecting someone, but I won’t be able to protect her for long.”

“Her?” Molly said with surprise. “Who--”

“Come closer, Molly.”

Molly approached Sherlock’s bedside timidly. “Who was it, Sherlock?”

“You know I trust you more than anyone, Molly. I know you will keep this a secret for me. I am telling you so that when the time comes and she needs to find me, you will be honest with her.”

“I don’t understand,” Molly said.

Sherlock glanced to the door to make sure it was closed and then turned back to Molly. “Closer, Molly, please.”

Molly leaned over and put her face close to Sherlock’s so he could tell her his secret. He reached up his left hand and placed it on her cheek.

“I trust you, Molly,” he said as she nodded her head. “Don’t tell anyone and don’t approach her or blame her, but if Mary comes looking for me, if she asks you where I might be, tell her the truth. Tell her whatever you know.”

“Mary?” Molly gasped.

“Yes. She was, and still is, in trouble. She will need me and I will help her. Please don’t tell anyone else that you know.” He stroked Molly’s cheek and then put his hand back down. “I’m tired now. Will you sit with me for a bit longer, Molly Hooper?”

Molly walked back around to the other side of the bed, back to the chair, and sat down. Sherlock’s eyes were closed, but he reached out his right hand toward Molly. She scooted her chair closer and held his hand as he drifted back to sleep. Molly sat there not daring to move, just feeling the warmth of his hand in hers, and she sobbed.

Molly was not a very religious person, but she had grown up in the church and she did believe in God. Now, as she sat there in hospital, with the man she loved, she placed her other hand gently on top of Sherlock’s and closed her eyes. She prayed. She prayed that this man that she cared for so much would realize his human limitations. She prayed that he wouldn’t put his life at risk anymore for the sake of this case. She prayed that one day she could tell him about his son and that he could be a father to William. And then she prayed that she would have the strength to hold on and see all of this come to fruition.


End file.
